• There goes the neighborhood: From Instagram aficionados to third-wave coffee fiends to idol-pop groupies, non-Japanese communities in Tokyo were rarely up for a place to call their own in the 2010s. As the capital grew in the run-up to next year's Olympics, however, a sneaking sense of similarity seemed to pervade the city's neighborhoods. | RIKO MONMA
    There goes the neighborhood: From Instagram aficionados to third-wave coffee fiends to idol-pop groupies, non-Japanese communities in Tokyo were rarely up for a place to call their own in the 2010s. As the capital grew in the run-up to next year's Olympics, however, a sneaking sense of similarity seemed to pervade the city's neighborhoods. | RIKO MONMA
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The most important lesson with Tokyo, one that many of us tend to learn the hard way, is that it’s best not to get too attached. For all the talk about “old meets new” in the tourism campaigns, the capital treats physical remnants of its past with the same reverence that Marie Kondo has for household clutter.

In this ever-mutating metropolis, the Imperial Palace and the shrines and temples wedged between office blocks are the only things that are truly sacred. Everything else is negotiable. Like an aging movie star, the city is constantly finding excuses to have some “work” done: a little nip and tuck here, a few extra skyscrapers there.

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